Instruments:
Bass, mandoline and keyboards (for Thin Crow)

Equipment:
Bogart SLC five string bass with graphite neck and Blackstone body.  I use a Roland V-Bass for effects. My amp is an old and virtually indestructible Dynacord Reference 3000 4x10 Combo.

Music:
If my memory serves me right, I first got in touch with music at the early of eleven in 1962. I learned to read music and to play the mandoline and started my musical career mandoline orchestra.

Apart from the usual folk tunes I also played classical pieces, e.g. Beethoven (Egmont-Overtüre) and later Vivaldi (Concert for Mandoline and Orchestra in C Major and for two Mandolines in G Major). The perfromance of »Carmina Burana« with the school choir was definitely a musical highlight in my early days, since I started singing soprano and changed to tenor and bass when my voice broke.

In 1963/64 I first got in touch with beat music. At a local fair I listened not only to the then popular tunes by Catarina Valente and Freddy Quinn, but also to the Beatles' "Help". I was blown away by that song. The beat era began and I found myself in the midst of a musical revolution that started in England and spread over the whole world.

I was also deeply influenced by jazz rock. With my band "Flageolett" I recorded an album "Horizonte" at Silvox-Studio in Ulft/Silvolde (NL) in 1989.

Bands:

• The Mrs. Great (1968 - 1974, reunion 2006 with original members),
• Twenty-One (ca. 1974 - 1983),
• Flageolett (ca. 1984 - 1989),
• Animal Crossing (since 1993),
• Flying Circus (since 1997),
• Thin Crow (since 2006)
• and of course Elleven (since 2009)

Musical influences: Some of most important bands for me were and still are Pink Floyd, Cream, Vanilla Fudge, The Who, Genesis, Mahavishnu Orchestra with John Mclaughlin, Gentle Giant, Jean Luc Ponti, Weather Report, Porcupine Tree, and many others ...

Get in contact with Roger: Send an email...